Vol. 69, Ed. 8

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Printing candy Design Hub works on a 3-D printer that will be able to print chocolate

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Wednesday 05.02.18

CURRENT The

American River College Sacramento, Calif.

ARC’S FUNERAL SERVICES PROGRAM ONE OF ONLY TWO IN CALIFORNIA

From AR to UN Former refugee and ARC almuna lands job with the United Nations

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Vol. 69

Ed. 8

How to leave ARC: 101

By Alondra Botello

botelloalondra7@gmail.com

into, until the last semester,” she said. “I go in there and tell them: ‘make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.’” She also said that some students are drawn to the major through misinterpretation. “What draws a lot [of students] is: ‘I see dead people,’” Alvarado said. Alvarado has worked in funeral services for over 15 years, and currently works as a licensed embalmer. Stress and odd hours are common in the field, she says. “Out of my class, maybe seven out of 15 [classmates] are still in the industry,” she said. “[I was] always sure of it … since I was six or seven I knew what I wanted to do.” Despite the stress, Alvarado says the work is rewarding. “I know that somehow I’ve helped a family with closure; with healing,” she said. “It’s good to know I helped.” Though challenging, the program helps prepare students for their future career. “The program is very rewarding if the student makes the best of it. It’s a tough program and the student will need to prepare for some serious sacrifices, but

Students are often advised to avoid community college at all costs because for many it is all too easy to get stuck. According to a website called Edsource.org, a study done by The Campaign for College Opportunity has concluded about four percent of community college students transfer in two years while 46% transfer in six years. A lot of the times it is because students end up taking more units than they have to, as Edsource.org explains. In any case, not one reason matches every student’s unique experience in community college and the time it takes to transfer. A change of major, extra classes and lack of knowledge are contributing factors to the delay. For former American River College student, Fatima Villafranca, it took five years to transfer to Sacramento State University. “It took me five years because I changed my major like five times,” Villafranca said. “I went from accounting, to business, to fashion, to philosophy, to psychology and then no one directed me on how to do it right.” This is common within community colleges. Since it is a cheaper alternative to a university, they have the leeway to explore and change what they want to major in. This was true in Villafranca’s case but she also felt that she was not informed enough to make a wise decision about transferring. “[Counselors] were making me take classes for those majors but they were not telling me to take [general education classes]. Which I should have focused on first,” Villafranca said. GEs are those classes sometimes students forget that they need in order to transfer to a university and graduate. GEs are outlined on a yellow sheet students can get from the counseling office on campus or online. The classes listed must be completed along with the lower division classes for the students’ designated major. Current ARC student, Xochitl Maldonado had a similar experience. Her first counselor advised her to take a class she later found out was unnecessary because it had nothing to do with her major or GEs. Although neither Maldonado or Villafranca said they relied too heavily on a counselor’s advice to make sure they transfer on time, they both admitted that seeing a

Funeral Services | Page 4

Transfer Checklist | Page 2

Photo by Ashley Hayes-Stone | Co-Managing Editor and Multimedia Editor

An anatomical skeleton stands in the funeral service education classroom on April 30, 2018.

ARC’s funeral services program in planning stages to open chapel By Hannah Yates

whut.hannah@gmail.com American River College is home to a small and rare education program: it is one of only two colleges in California that offers funeral services education as a major. The department is accredited by the American Board of Funeral Service Education, and there are 59 total FSE degree programs accredited in the United States. Currently, the department consists of 51 enrolled students, with a limit of 60, and only one faculty member. The last college before ARC and Cypress, a school in southern California, to offer the major was the San Francisco School of Mortuary, which exported the program to ARC 12 years ago. The director of ARC’s program, Valarie Rose, attended the San Francisco School of Mortuary before it was shut down. “I saw it, and I was just like: ‘This is it.’ The old school was pretty cool looking, it looked like a big medical school … it was built in the early 1900s,” Rose said. “I moved to San Francisco, I wound up going and just loved it ever since.” The school opened in 1930, but

struggled to keep up with the cost of keeping the program there, according to SFWeekly. Eventually, the school was forced to send the program somewhere else. “As soon as [faculty] heard it was closing, they started working to bring everything to [ARC] and get it approved,” Rose said. The program still has space to expand. “We unfortunately don’t advertise it enough here at the college,” she said. Rose is not only the program director, but the professor for many of the courses required. There are also adjunct professors, most of whom teach lab and online classes. FSE prepares students for a career as a funeral director or an embalmer. Funeral directors conduct a funeral service, which includes tasks such as paperwork, arrangement of service preferences and communicating with the family of the deceased. Embalmers prepare the body, either for sanitation or for the service, which may include a viewing. They use many methods to make a body presentable, or treat a body out of need for sanitation. The idea of handling dead bodies makes some uneasy, which is

why Rose emphasizes the benefits of the field. “It’s not [weird] ... It’s just trying to make them look good — present a good picture for the families,” Rose said. “That’s how they’re going to get their closure, by seeing their loved one looking peaceful and not in pain anymore.” The misconceptions about funerals and workers are not uncommon. Rose said that in her introductory course, she often comes across students who have a different perception of the field. “When we teach that class, almost everybody walks in there in black clothing, eyeliner on, black nail polish, the whole nine yards — it’s completely goth. And they’re like: ‘I love dead bodies,’” she said. “After they go through the course, by the end of it usually they’re going, ‘Wow this isn’t about the bodies even hardly at all.’ It’s about what families need and rituals for people to help them get through a death.” Students don’t always come to the same conclusion, according to Leticia Alvarado, who graduated from the program at ARC in 2016, and speaks at orientations for the students. “A lot of my classmates didn’t know what they were getting

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